News and Announcements

March 5, 2014: HST/COS are being scheduled for the U Gem-type dwarf nova SDSS J100658.40+233724.4, the 40th and final target of the major CV observing campaign organized in 2012 by Drs. Boris Gaensicke, Joseph Patterson, Arne Henden, and 13 other astronomers (see AAVSO Alert Notice 471 and note below). A precise time will be announced later, but the scheduled HST observing window is:

Congratulations to AAVSO staff member Mike Simonsen, and to AAVSO Past President Mario Motta who each have had an asteroid named in their honor by the IAU Minor Planet Center.

The official citations read as follows:

(367732) Mikesimonsen = 2010 UT62 Discovered 2005 May 4 by J. Bedient at Faulkes Telescope. Mike Simonsen (b. 1956) is a talented musician, an accomplished horticulturalist, a popularizer of astronomy, and a leader in the study of variable stars.

February 6, 2014: Rod Stubbings (observer code SRX; Tetoora Road, Victoria, Australia) reports an outburst of the recurrent nova V0745 Sco (aka Nova Sco 1937). Stubbings reports the nova at a visual magnitude of 9.0 on 2014 February 6.694 UT (JD 2456695.194). He previously observed the field on 2014 February 5.696 and found the star fainter than 13.0, indicating that this outburst began within the past 24 hours.

The AAVSO maintains several lists of stars for which observations are strongly encouraged. These are primarily stars for which the AAVSO already has well-covered light curves spanning several decades or longer, and for which we deem there is value in continuing observations indefinitely.

I have been with the AAVSO for two and a half years as the Administrative Assistant. And what an adventure it has been! I've been to three fall meetings, including the Centennial. I’ve experienced the introduction of CHOICE courses, the Adopt A Variable Star Program (AAVSP), and the move to the online forums. I’ve worked with our publications, our store, our website, and our social media. I’ve biked to HQ in pouring rain and slippe

The list below are stars whose sequences have been created or revised since October 8, 2013. If you currently observe any of these stars, please update your charts to the latest version of the sequence.

December 19, 2013: Darryl Sergison (University of Exeter) has requested AAVSO assistance with a campaign he is carrying out on five T Tauri stars. This study is the one for which AAVSO observers carried out a preliminary campaign last year (see Alert Notice 473 and Special Notice #306). The star list is revised and expanded from last year's list of targets. This campaign will run from now at least through the end of the 2013-2014 observing season.

December 18, 2013: Further to AAVSO Alert Notice 493, Dr. Hans Moritz Guenther (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) has been given the precise times of the Chandra X-ray observations to be made of the T Tauri star BP Tau:

December 18, 2013: Dr. Hans Moritz Guenther (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) has requested nightly observations of the classical T Tauri star BP Tau in support of upcoming Chandra X-ray observations in his study of the accretion processes underway in this star.